Exceptional History

 


Last week, President Trump provided the next soundbites in the cultural wars. This time he focused squarely on education and the teaching of American history. Education Week, an online educator periodical, captured and highlighted aspects of the president's comments. "We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and our classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country," Mr. Trump stated. He also said that teaching the 1619 Project and ideas like Critical Race Theory "is especially harmful to children of minority backgrounds who should be uplifted, not disparaged. Teaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse in the truest sense of those words." 

The president feels that educators are confusing students about the legacy of our nation, and he called for schools to "teach American exceptionalism" because schools are teaching kids to "hate their own country."  The president emphasized that: "We will stop the radical indoctrination of our students and restore patriotic education to our schools. We will teach our children to love our country, honor our history, and always respect our great American flag."

Sadly, our history is has less to do with facts and more with an interpretation of events.  The American promise is being destroyed daily by those who continue to look backwards instead of forwards. An essence of exceptionalism does not make an exceptional nation. Yes, there are some exceptional moments in American history but a nation cannot live on its past reputation. President Trump does not realize that you cannot recapture the past - not in a marriage, sports, history or even a fantasy! His quest for greatness is turning America into a laughing stock. While Americans are running around in red hats and chanting slogans, trying to reclaim a legacy of greatness, the rest of the world is actually trying to advance through effort both legally and illegally.  American exceptionalism means being honest, good and ethical people. It means being blessed by God for doing his work. We are hardly those people. Even candidate Trump defended Russians by suggesting that Americans killed too!  Yes, he knows that his claims of American exceptionalism are a hoax!

Slavery and conquest are two problems in the history of this nation that defy our claims of exceptionalism. There must be a reckoning of these two events in our history before we can move further. The lands of native peoples were seized through wars, lies and thievery. Native Americans never willingly gave their lands to Europeans. As Americans we have to admit we pitted groups of First People against each other to fulfill our dream of continental domination. That process took over 200 years. Similarly, the use of slaves also went on for over 200 years and in many instances we defied our own laws and values to maintain this peculiar institution. 

Our Founding Fathers were great men, but they were not perfect. Some of them owned slaves. Many did not trust the common man. That is why they did not allow all Americans the rights of citizenship and the franchise. Only men of property could vote before 1824. Senators were picked by governors or state legislatures and not the public. Women, Native Americans and African Americans had to fight for citizenship and the right to vote. Women still lack complete control of their bodies. White Anglo-European Americans discriminated against the Irish, German, and Italians throughout the 19th century. They discriminated against Mormons, Catholics and Jews well into the modern era. This same cohort created immigration restrictions against most of the world in the beginning of the 20th century, instituted Jim Crow societies in the South, created exclusion acts against Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and later placed Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II,  None of these stories convey ideas of exceptionalism. 

We should not be fooled by President Trump, Senator Tom Cotton or others who speak of American exceptionalism and denounce the 1619 Project. America can be great, but its dark past is as visible as leaves on a pond. Nothing is just below the surface - it is front and center. You cannot drive through the west without seeing what we still call reservations and you cannot drive through the nation without seeing socially and politically mandated segregation and then modernized apartheid. Every great nation has warts. America is not the exception to the rule.

It is often better to acknowledge that warts exist rather than spending countless hours trying to lie about the obvious. The legacy of slavery is inescapable as is the treatment of Native Americans. The 1619 Project might not provide the desired interpretation, but its foundations lie in the historical truths of this nation's origins. Maybe if politicians could abandon their antiquated teachings of the past, they could work with educators to develop that type of history that our students need to survive in the 21st century as citizens of the United States and the world.

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